November 16, 2011

You can get anything you want

With the articles being passed around Facebook and Twitter and blogs about how all the stores are going to just start opening at midnight on Black Friday, and in some cases are just not going to close for Thanksgiving, it's sort of weird seeing everyone comment about how they "feel bad for the employees" who are going to be forced to abandon their families on Thanksgiving and instead go to work to let people buy stuff at 2 in the morning.

I realize this seems like an obvious point, but they don't really give a shit if you "feel bad for them" and saying so on Facebook isn't going to stop their Thanksgiving dinner from being canceled. What you can do is simply not go shopping at 2 in the morning. If no one goes shopping at 2 in the morning, then the stores don't actually need to force their employees to be there, away from their families, most likely with no overtime or extra pay for being up at night on a holiday. I can attest from experience that not getting dressed and going somewhere at 2 in the morning is actually one of the easiest things I have ever had to do in my life, ever.

This is one of those simplistic, Andy Rooney-ish "well duh" observations but I'm sort of surprised how it's never really brought up on the teevee from the pretty people who tell us what is happening in the world. They report stories about how stores are opening at midnight and cut to people being surprised about that, and while it's obvious why they don't say this, they still don't point out that, yeah, everyone could just not go shopping.

Seriously. This isn't even an anti-shopping, anti-Capitalist thing. If you want to buy shit feel free to buy shit. Just don't buy shit at 2 in the morning. It really, truly is that simple.

November 14, 2011

"Believe in Bachmann"

In one of those great examples of stating a fact in an angry voice to make it sound like it's actually a controversy, the Bachmann campaign wailed that this weekend's debate on CBS had the moderators focus more heavily on candidates like Romney, Cain and Perry. CBS responded with, "well, yeah."

It's been weird watching two opposing narratives go on simultaneousy these last few months: the first being that the "liberal media" is desperately trying to get Obama re-elected by sabotaging right-wing candidates, and the other being that the "liberal media" is hyping Mitt Romney, also known as the only Republican candidate who has any actual chance of beating Obama whatsoever. The Bachmann campaign, which for reasons I cannot possibly fathom is still receiving both money and media attention, seems to be angry that CBS even let her on television at all, as opposed to being grateful for it. Her campaign manager just spent the weekend yelling at a news network for giving her air time. How dare they.